


In the emptiness of dunes

by InvertedPhantasmagoria



Series: and I forge myself [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Begging, Blood Drinking, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Fear Play, Gen, Hueco Mundo is miserable, Memories, Mental Instability, Mild Blood, Near Death Experiences, Past Lives, Psychological Torture, Self-Indulgent, Twisted Affection, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 21:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InvertedPhantasmagoria/pseuds/InvertedPhantasmagoria
Summary: With blood under Grimmjow’s nails, coating his hands up to the wrist, he feels something like himself. For the first time in weeks, he feels something like who he’s supposed to be.The Adjuchas fall one by one. Grimmjow eats some of them, others he simply leaves to fade away. He’s not as hungry as he used to be, which is saying something but also not much at all. He doesn’tneedto eat every piece of prey that crosses his path. This might be as far as he can evolve at all. This might be as far as he gets.Grimmjow licks his blood-stained teeth and tries not to laugh. This ending isn’t quite as secure as he always thought.For some reason, feeling some wild little thing in his chest, Grimmjow strays from Las Noches as far as he can go. Sonido rushes him across the sands, out into the deepest reaches of the dunes. The further he goes, the bigger they get, shifting from flat, trodden sand to untouched mountains of white. Even the scents in the air slowly fade into nothingness.





	In the emptiness of dunes

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is self-indulgent bullshit, and I'm admitting it! :D The only reason I'm even posting this is to give a friend some confidence about their own self-indulgent bullshit, so here we are. I'm shoving this in everyone's faces and I'm not sorry. 
> 
> The specific request for this was Zora scaring the living shit out or Grimmjow, so that's what I did. I'm not even going to explain anything. Zora is awful and that's all there is to it. This will be a series, probably. o3o
> 
> Comments would be much appreciated!!!

Zora lies under the sand. She’s been there for quite a while, although she can’t remember exactly how long. The world around her is quiet and still, only the hissing of grains to drown out her thoughts. 

She sleeps, more than any Hollow does or is meant to. She’s big enough that nothing can touch her, that she has no worries of being killed or eaten while her eyes are closed and her guard is down. She has nothing to fear. There’s a freedom in that, greater than in what every other one of her new kind has to experience. 

Lowering her spiritual pressure– a monstrous thing, Zora has become aware– she settles in so deep under the white sand that nothing could find her if it tried. That nothing could bother her again. 

She’ll sleep until there’s something worth opening her eyes for.

. . . 

Grimmjow has fire under his skin and an itch in his claws. It’s Hollow nature– needing to kill things to feel sane. 

It’s a problem with an easy solution, and with Pantera strapped to his hip like it belongs there, like the sword is just an extension of how his claws used to be, Grimmjow readies himself to draw blood. 

He feels best on nights like this. Giving in to his nature is the greatest freedom he could ask for. Acting less like the human the Shinigami seems to want him to be and more like the wild, feral thing he still knows he is inside is as close to returning to the way things used to be as Grimmjow knows he’ll ever get. He’s not sure _why_ he longs for the days when the world was as simple as killing anything that crossed his path, but he does. 

The memory of those times is like nothing else he knows. 

. . . 

With blood under Grimmjow’s nails, coating his hands up to the wrist, he feels something like himself. For the first time in weeks, he feels something like who he’s supposed to be. 

The Adjuchas fall one by one. Grimmjow eats some of them, others he simply leaves to fade away. He’s not as hungry as he used to be, which is saying something but also not much at all. He doesn’t _need_ to eat every piece of prey that crosses his path. This might be as far as he can evolve at all. This might be as far as he gets. 

Grimmjow licks his blood-stained teeth and tries not to laugh. This ending isn’t quite as secure as he always thought. 

For some reason, feeling some wild little thing in his chest, Grimmjow strays from Las Noches as far as he can go. Sonido rushes him across the sands, out into the deepest reaches of the dunes. The further he goes, the bigger they get, shifting from flat, trodden sand to untouched mountains of white. Even the scents in the air slowly fade into nothingness. 

There are fewer Hollows out here on the edges, away from where everything fights to kill itself and everything around it. 

This part of the sand is dark and cold and _empty._

Grimmjow suppresses a shudder. He’s never been quite this far. It’s going to take him ages to get back– he’s been here for ages already.

He flares his spiritual pressure, once, just to scare out anything that might be hiding near him. He didn’t come this far not to kill something, and surely, _surely_ –

A hand lands on his shoulder. 

. . . 

Opening her eyes, Zora feels her massive body shift. There’s a presence out there, far above her. A _strong_ presence. 

It’s the strongest Hollow she’s felt in a long time, its spiritual pressure a fierce, sudden flare. The feel of it is hot and sharp, burning iron under her tongue, and for the first time in longer than she can remember, Zora wants to sink her teeth into something almost alive. 

Zora stretches, testing where all of her parts still are. From the feel of things, she’s been asleep for centuries, maybe more. She wonders, vaguely, if there’s anything out there in the sands that still remembers what it was like to fear her. 

She’s been dreaming of her human form, she thinks with something like a laugh. She’s been dreaming of tundra and snow, tall pines and swords clashing under pouring rain. 

She’s been dreaming of what it was like to live. 

Crushing her own spiritual pressure down to nothing, Zora eases herself up from under the sand, shifting down to her smaller form as she goes. She doesn’t want to be noticed. Yet. Rather, she thinks she’d like to see the expression on this new Hollow’s face when she makes her first grand appearance in longer than it’s most likely been alive. 

Will it fear her? Will it understand, just from seeing her eyes, that she could swallow it whole? 

The possibilities are endless. 

Zora breaches the surface of the sand, silent as a whisper. The new Hollow is in front of her, maybe ten yards away. He’s _human,_ shaped like her, without a mask in sight. 

This human Hollow is fire-bold, broad-shouldered and standing tall, a shock of pastel blue the only color she’s seen in this forsaken world in centuries. There’s a sword at his hip, blood coating his hands, and although she can’t see his eyes, Zora can already imagine how brilliant they’ll be. He reminds her of one of her own already, the sparks of fortitude and confidence flickering off his shoulders like something molten and red.

Still suppressing her power, moving whisper-quiet over the sand, Zora slips up behind him. His spiritual pressure flares, crashing over her like a wave. The taste of it is like spice on her tongue. 

Her hand closes on his shoulder as she fights down a laugh. 

. . . 

Whirling around, Grimmjow comes face to face with... someone. 

Or rather, it would be face to face if this someone didn’t have a good two feet of height on him. 

He steps back, or more like stumbles. The person is a woman, tall and slim and strong. Her hair is a wild mane down to her ankles, she isn’t wearing a stitch, and her eyes have the same light in them that Grimmjow thinks he might have had when he was killing something. 

There’s a hole through her hand, twin crowns of spines on either side of her head, and not a mask in sight. 

“Good day to you, Hollow,” she says in an accented voice, sliding over the vowels in a way Grimmjow has never heard. There’s something almost mocking in her tone, in the way she bows her head. 

“The fuck are you?”

“Ah... well, I’m not sure I remember.” She taps a long finger to her chin, never breaking eye contact. Her smile is wickedly sharp, all thin lips and point-tipped teeth. “You see, I’ve been out here for so _long_ , I think I may have forgotten. I don’t get many visitors out this far, and I’m afraid I haven’t had the chance to introduce myself in quite a while.” 

“Cut the innocent act. I don’t have the patience for that shit.” It’s impossible to judge how strong she is. There’s not a whisper of spiritual pressure coming off of her, which means she’s either pathetically weak or way too strong. 

He’s not sure which he’s hoping for. 

. . . 

“Oh, such an attitude.” Zora shakes her head, her voice foreign to her own ears. She hasn’t spoken to anyone in so long, it’s a wonder her words are still coming out in the right language. 

The Hollow clenches his teeth, all but growling. Zora stares into his eyes and finds the exact kind of vicious strength she wanted. 

Up close, he smells like spices and sweat. How much of it is his energy, she can’t tell. How deeply she enjoys the hot, cloying scent in her lungs, she’s certain. 

Oh, how badly she wants to take a bite. 

“Do you want to die?” he bites out, hand twitching towards the sword at his side. Zora has to hold back a laugh. He’s all bluster and big words. Surely, he’s wondering if he even stands a chance. 

“Me? What about you? You’re the one rushing blindly into a fight, aren’t you? But anyway, anyway, I should ask _your_ name. You’re my guest out here. Please, tell me what I should call you.” She’s toying with him and they both know it. How much of it is bluff, he’ll never know. 

Her Hollow growls again, his bloodstained fingers clenching. Zora looks at him with curiosity, with amusement. He’s like a child lashing out at an adult without thinking twice. Young, so young, his energy a flicker next to the ocean that’s under her skin. She wants to push. She wants to test his limits and see just when he’ll snap. 

. . . 

“Yours first.”

The woman smiles again, a little wider. Grimmjow’s muscles shiver all on their own. She still hasn’t shown a hint of spiritual pressure. Sure, some of them are damn good at suppressing it, but with him right there? With a fight right under her nose? She should be showing her strength, not standing there like she’s _bored._

“Very well. My name is Zora, I believe. It _has_ been quite a while since I had to tell it.” Her posture shifts, shoulders angling. She’s relaxed, too relaxed. Grimmjow wants to cut the smile right off of her. 

“Grimmjow Jeagerjaques.” He doesn’t tell her more. There’s no need to, when one of them will be dead or bleeding soon enough. 

The blood on his hands is drying, crusting. Grimmjow debates lunging for her, seeing if he can tear her throat out before she has time to react. She’s unarmed, at least on the outside, and while that’s no reason to underestimate something out here, Grimmjow can’t help but feel like he could take her. He _has_ to. Out here, with no one watching, he’d be able to give it his all. The king can’t bear to falter. 

. . .

Grimmjow. Grimmjow. Zora hums the name under her tongue, ignoring the strange look he gives her. The lilt of it is familiar, in the way that tells her it’s something _he_ made sure she knew.

Zora watches the way his eyes flicker, bluer than the sky. He’s angry. He’s cautious. He’d like to see if he could beat her, but Zora doesn’t quite want to try that yet. She’d hate to squash him so early. He’s so much more _vivid_ when he still thinks he can fight. 

They stare at each other for a moment, Zora still rolling his name over in her head. He’s the first name she’s known since she’s been here. 

“One of us is gonna have to give,” he states, glaring dead in her eyes. 

“Really? Can’t we have a nice conversation instead?”

She laughs. He flares his spiritual pressure at her, and the warmth settles under her skin. She’s been trying not to eat, but... here, now, the heat of him tastes so _good._

. . . 

She doesn’t flinch. He flares his spiritual pressure, half-expecting to bring her to her knees, but she doesn’t give so much as a twitch. 

That settles it. She’s strong. This will end in a fight for sure. 

“Quit fucking around. Hiding your strength is a coward’s move. Face me head-on! I’m tired of wasting time.” A challenge. A boast. She’s either going to snap here and now, or he’s going to have to make the first move. Grimmjow would at least like to get a feel for her power first. 

Zora looks down at him, her eyes unreadable. Grimmjow shifts his weight, hand going to the hilt of Pantera. He’ll beat her. He’ll turn her into a pile of meat on the ground, just like everyone who stands against him. 

“Very well.”

Something changes in the air. 

The first prickle of her spiritual pressure hits him, the coldest thing he’s ever felt. An instant later, it _overflows._

Grimmjow gasps as he’s slammed to the ground, legs buckling under the weight of it. He’s drowning. He’s choking. His lungs aren’t obeying, and if he had a heart, Grimmjow is sure it would be close to bursting. 

The pressure flows, flickers, spewing out of her in waves. Zora laughs, low and proud. From the ground, she’s as tall as a mountain, and forced to the ground like a piece of prey, Grimmjow knows fear like nothing he’s ever felt. She could kill him in an instant. With spiritual pressure like that, she’s a _monster._ It’s worse than Starrk’s, worse than Aizen’s, worse than anything Grimmjow has ever felt.

“Hmm? I thought you wanted to kill me. Come on, stand up.” Her energy wanes, giving him just enough room to breathe. She closes the gap between them, and it’s _back,_ strangling him on a bundle of freezing air. 

Just when Grimmjow thinks he’s really going to die, the pressure vanishes, ebbing out into the air. 

He sucks in a frantic breath, shaking so hard it feels like he could fall apart. He can’t move. He can’t stand. Laid out on the sand with his belly bared, he couldn’t fight her if he tried. She’d destroy him. He wouldn’t last a moment against power like that. 

Zora kneels beside him, cupping two fingers under his chin. 

. . . 

“Scared, aren’t you? When I was awake last time, everything was. Stay down, Grimmjow. I won’t tolerate any more resistance. The time for our game is over.” 

His skin is soft under her fingertips, the sharp curve of his mask just inches away. On impulse, she digs in her nails, pushing until they slip through the soft part of his upper throat like a ripe fruit. The red trails down tanned flesh, irresistible. 

Zora leans in, breathing in the spice of him. His smell has changed to fear-sweat and sharp, jagged terror. Her tongue flickers up the angle of his chin, his blood an electric thing against the roof of her mouth. 

Grimmjow shudders, terror vivid in his eyes. 

. . . 

“You taste _warm_ ,” she mutters, cold tongue licking smoothly over her lips. For one awful, awful second, Grimmjow is sure she’s going to eat him then and there. Maybe she won’t even bother to kill him first. 

It’s everything a Hollow could ever fear. Pinned down by something twice his size, throat exposed to her tongue and teeth, helpless to fight back and not be, at last, consumed. Grimmjow’s breath heaves ragged through his chest. Somehow, he can feel his spiritual pressure being drained away, sucked off of him, leaving a cold void behind. 

“D-Don’t kill me.” As soon as Grimmjow finds his breath, the words slip out. It’s pathetic. _He’s_ pathetic, but fuck, he doesn’t want to die like this. He’s supposed to go out in a blaze of battle, not underneath some horrible monster brought up from the sand. 

“ _Please._ ”

Zora laughs, a wild, open sound. From this angle, Grimmjow can see every slanted razor blade of her teeth. 

. . . 

Oh, he’s just precious. Grimmjow’s blood is warm on her tongue, his flesh is solid and strong under her hands, and his pleading voice is sweet to her ears. For the first time since she entered this world of night and sand, Zora feels something like herself. 

“Do you know how I kill them? Do you know how I did?” It comes out before she really thinks about it, the answer fresh in her mind. 

Grimmjow’s eyes go very wide. He barely manages to shake his head. 

“A rock.” Zora cups one hand, mimicking the feeling of a stone within it. The memories wash over her like a river stream. “A big one. As big as my hand can hold. I get them on the ground, and I hit them until their heads are nothing but mush and meat. I don’t need a sword. I never have. If I don’t have one... I kill them just like that.”

Grimmjow looks very pointedly terrified. 

He stares at her hand, then back at her, seemingly very thankful that there are no rocks nearby. Some flash of instinct makes Zora want to take a bite out of the softest parts of him. 

“I like you,” she says next, his warmth filling her chest. “You smell like the south, like spices. I love the look in your eyes.”

That seems to scare him more than anything. 

Zora runs the hand with the hole in it down his chest, over cold skin and the firm press of muscle. She barely glances over his belly, and he flinches harder than ever before, body curling in like a dying insect. He’s shaking again, terribly so. 

And then, her hand goes to his sash, to the belt holding his sword. 

It can’t hurt, can it? Surely, it can’t hurt to go back to the way things used to be, if only for this moment. 

. . . 

The woman’s hand skims over his stomach, far too close to _that,_ and Grimmjow’s body reacts like he’s dying. She’s touching the most vulnerable part of him like it’s nothing. The hole in the center of him is exposed, and Grimmjow has never regretted his choice in uniform more. She could stick her fingers _into_ it at any moment she wants. 

Instead of gutting him, though, Zora’s hand moves to his hip, where Pantera rests, heavy and dragging in the sand. 

She slides the sword out from under his sash before he quite realizes what she’s going for.

“Ah, it’s heavy,” Zora croons, running her fingers over the blade. “It’s been ages since I held a blade like this. The shape is different, but... the feel of it is the same.”

She _can’t._ She can’t take it. She’s holding what amounts to his soul in her hands, and Grimmjow has the sudden awareness that she has no intention to give it back. He’s past the point of demands. His voice won’t cooperate long enough for him to plead for it back. 

Zora stands, still holding Pantera in her massive hands. The sword looks small next to her, like a toy. She takes a step back, then two, unnaturally graceful for her size and the length of her limbs. 

Grimmjow finally, finally gets himself to his knees. 

His limbs are shaking horribly. He almost collapses twice. But then he’s crouched on the ground, debating whether she’d kill him for begging for Pantera to be returned. 

“You– you d-don’t understand,” he croaks, sounding wretched and scared. “That sword, it’s important. You c-can’t _take_ it.”

“I think,” Zora smiles, “you are in no position to be telling me what I can and cannot take.”

No. No. _No._ Even if she lets him live, she’ll be ruining him. No sword, no release, no way to protect himself. It’ll be worse than being crippled, as bad as losing a limb. 

His throat won’t work long enough to let him beg. Zora turns away, holding Pantera to her side. She whispers a goodbye, and before Grimmjow can spit out another desperate plead, she slips into the sand like she was never there. There’s not even a ripple left behind. 

. . . 

Zora emerges outside the sand miles away. 

A sword in her hands again, Zora feels so much like she did before. Echoes of clanging blades sound behind her ears. The feel of wet, dark earth beneath her bare feet is as close as it ever was. 

For just a moment, the world of sand becomes forests, becomes tundra and snow and the place she knows as _home._

Perhaps this is just starting over. She climbed from the bottom once before. She clawed her way to the top from as helpless as a person could be. The system of kill and take, grow stronger by standing atop a pile of corpses is no different than it was when she was alive. 

Zora holds her stolen sword tight so she doesn’t claw at the hole in her hand. When she feels like this, it’s hard not to tear at the place that _hurts._

Instead, she traces her fingers over the blade, thinking of Grimmjow and how his terror smelled. Every instant of him was vivid and bright, gunpowder bursting to life against her skin. The blood on his hands, the fire in his eyes, the feel of his throat under her fingertips. It’s all so much more thrilling than she remembers. 

After sleeping for an era, Zora once again feels ready to rise. 


End file.
